Responding to a new NEA study reporting an increase in “literary reading,” David L. Ulin says: “I’m not so sure reading really was in crisis – any more than it ever has been. Laments over the death of reading are as old as mass literacy; ever since we began to consider culture as a social value, we’ve fixated on the way it falls apart. But what is it exactly we’re lamenting?”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Mansour Rahbani, 83, One-Half Of Lebanon’s Rodgers & Hammerstein
“Lebanese composer Mansour Rahbani, well-known in the Arab world along with his brother Assi for their role in musical and theatrical revival, died on Tuesday following a bout of pneumonia… Assi Rahbani was married to legendary Lebanese singing diva Fairuz, for whom the two men composed many songs and plays… Mansour and Assi, who became known as the Rahbani Brothers, also wrote several acclaimed musicals.”
Arvo Pärt Dedicates New Symphony To Jailed Russian Oligarch
“But now, 38 years after the Third Symphony, Pärt has written a Fourth, labeled it ‘Los Angeles’ and dedicated it to Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a Russian oil executive with political ambitions who was accused of fraud and now languishes in a Siberian prison.”
Vienna Theater Achieves New Low In Taste
“An Austrian theater says it will stage a satiric soap opera centered around Josef Fritzl, a man who allegedly held his daughter captive for 24 years and fathered her seven children. The 3raum-anatomietheater in Vienna says the show will be titled Pension Fritzl – German for ‘Fritzl’s Bed and Breakfast’.”
Claudio Abbado Has An Interesting Proposition For La Scala
For more than 15 years the revered maestro has declined every invitation to return to the famous(ly tempestuous) opera house where he was music director from 1968 to 1986, when the house’s (famously) cantankerous orchestra chased him away. Now Abbado says he will come back to conduct for no fee – if Milan’s government agrees to plant 90,000 new trees in the city.
Itzhak Perlman Scolds Florida Audience For Not Liking Messiaen
The violinist believes so strongly in Messiaen’s Theme and Variations (“I’m telling you, it’s a terrific piece”) that he rebuked his West Palm Beach listeners from the stage for their tepid reaction (“Tell me something: Was it really that bad that half of you didn’t want to clap?”) and then played it a second time.
American Idol Cuts Back On Public Humiliation Of The Talentless
“Along with a new, fourth judge, more semifinalists and a ‘wild-card’ round that gives some contestants a second chance to go to the finals, commercials promoting the new season have shown fewer of the bizarre and obviously untalented contestants than in previous years.”
Stephen Hough Surveys Dressing Rooms Of The World
Says the MacArthur-award-winning pianist of his new blog series, “Rooms I have dressed in”: “I do spend over a hundred hours a year in these surprisingly small, surprisingly stuffy, surprisingly unglamorous chambers, and I thought it might be interesting to have a series of candid photographs of them from across the globe.”
Edinburgh Fringe Seeks £600K Government Bailout
“The festival’s board is preparing to ask for emergency funds to meet basic running costs after a box office crisis last year saw sales slump by almost 10 per cent… The Fringe’s acting director, Tim Hawkins, said at least £300,000 was needed in the next three months alone to pay for the emergency box office service and recruitment costs of last year.”
Pacific Baroque Orchestra Puts A Face On Its Fundraising
The Vancouver period-instrument band “has decided it wants to be led by the internationally-known harpsichordist and music director Alexander Weimann… So, we decided we’re going to form the Alex Weimann Club, and we’re going to let the world know that if we can get enough money to bring Alex Weimann to Vancouver, he can be here on a regular basis.”